DANM250 Class Page /projects /manifest Landscape /pastoral Aesthetics

Based on the idea of presenting environmentalism through images in a way which persuades the middle class that closer living quarters with more shared open spaces that double as wildlife habitat is more effective than lecturing people about an amphibian, this particular project aims to do to (the chosen location) what Bierstadt did to Yosemite. We hope to influence these potential housing developments by presenting the natural environment in a manner that appeals to the desires the prospective future inhabitants, and thus pressuring the developers to be guided by popular demand.

If you tell people they are preserving a landscape they are more likely to take steps toward that then if you show them a photo of a frog. Use the same features that these painters used to convince people to exploit nature to convince them to save it.

Essential Steps

• Finding a location to base our work in, preferably one that is considered for development and home to an endangered species.
• Determine the habitat used by the species
• Photograph that habitat in a idealizing manner (with respect to the psychology of mid class?)
• Draw the parallels between those photos and Bierstadt
• Present these photos to the community?
• Hooking up with Sierra Club or some other environmental community

Installation Idea

• A recreation of these landscapes with sound and images
• Manifest Preservation or Manifest Landscape

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